My 2013 Word: Confident

Like many bloggers, I’ve become fond of picking a word for the year. I did this last year for the first time (my word was “focus”) and created a printable for it that I framed and hung outside my home office / craft room door.I decided to do it again this year because it helped to see it displayed there every time I went into my office.

I’ve always had people tell me that they think I’m so self confident when in reality the opposite is more often true than not. I am my own worst critic; hardest on myself, riddled with self doubt . Truth is, I’ve always struggled with being confident in myself.

What’s the line between confident and arrogant? How can you be the former without being obnoxious and self important? These are things that have always  been at the back of my mind.

But I do want to be confident in a positive and healthy way and it’s not like I’m a whimpering puddle in the corner but just really want to focus on not feeling guilty about being confident if that makes any sense? I think as women, we struggle with that. Mr. Chocolate helps me with this but it's still something I need to work on from within.

I want to be confident in growing my blog while remaining true to myself. Working with new brands and sponsors and maybe some ads, but again, not losing my authenticity. I need to learn how to say “no” with confidence. I’m learning how to prioritize myself. My day job is one of those where if I don’t set limits , no one else will and it will consume me and I need to do that with a strong sense of confidence too.

When College Boy graduated from High School almost two years ago, I used this portion of a  quote from Thoreau on a lot of cards and décor I made :

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined.

This is going to be a milestone year for me ( more on that to come later) so it’s in that spirit that I’ve chosen the word “Confident”.

Do you have a word of the year for 2013? If so, will you share it in the comments?

Happy New Year! 2013 Reminders For Me

I've never been a resolution maker. Or, I should say that I've never been good at resolution making...specifically resolution keeping.  I like the idea of them but I've found that "life is what happens when you're busy making other plans" and making resolutions that are too specific doesn't always leave room for reality. Things change and then I'm riddled with anxiety over feeling like I've failed.

But I have set some goals for 2013,  or as I like to think of them , reminders of things I want to keep at the forefront  so here goes!

So tell me, do you make resolutions or fly by the seat of your pants? 

Happy New Year! 

BFF Open House #85 Wrap Up and Features

Well almost. I just can’t bring myself to think that at the stroke of midnight, we will enter a New Year. There are many parts of 2012 I will gladly remember and other parts I will just as gladly leave behind.

One of the parts I look forward to continuing in 2013 is the weekly BFF Open House Link Party which I hope you all will continue to link up to. I have some other thoughts about the blog I’ll share in a different post but for now, thanks for hanging in in 2012 and hope to see everyone just as much in 2013.

Now, for our last set of features for 2012, here we go.

If you need a high style low cost way to decorate for New Year’s , then you need to see what Bethany at Pitter and Glink did with a dollar store plate and paint pens.

Must be a pink blog New Year’s thing because Pinkopatamus has a wonderful tutorial on how to make a great New Year’s hat.

Needless to say, chocolate has to be a part of my New Year’s celebration. Jenn from Rook No 17 has got a recipe for milk chocolate peanut butter truffles with banana dust that will make you drool:

If you already have a dessert picked out, I’ll bet it could only be made better with some chocolate sauce because what can’t be made better with chocolate sauce? OK some things. Maybe. But not many! This recipe from Cath’s Cookery Creations would be great to have on hand just in case.

Wishing you all a peaceful and joyous New Year.

Easy Filigree Metal Bead Bracelet

Fighting off some sort of bug today so wasn’t up for tackling anything too hard. Sometimes though, the easiest things turn out to be those you love the most.

I fell in love with this Mud Pie bead mix from Blue Moon Beads the second I saw it. My colors and style 1000%.  This is one of the mixes that’s available exclusively at JoAnn’s.

It’s a mixture of filigreed metal, wire mesh wrapped, and metallic colored beads. I decided the beads were so awesome they needed to be used simply. What’s simpler than stretchy cord? I keep seeing fun stretchy bracelets at places like Nordstrom for $50 and up. If you can tie a knot, you can make enough of your own bracelets to match your entire wardrobe for the price of one.

I started stringing with no patter in mind. Just grabbed beads from the tin until it was the right size.  I don’t pre-cut my cord, but leave it on the spool and string my beads on until I’m happy with the size.

I had these smoky grey faceted charms in my supplies and decided they’d go great on this bracelet. I added these after the bracelet was complete and put them on using silver jump rings. Again, just kind of eyeballed the spacing.

While I was provided the beads for this project as a member of the Blue Moon Beads design team, the pricing is such that these are an affordable way to achieve a high fashion look.

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BFF Open House Link Party #85 Last One of 2012 Edition

Yikes. I got all turned around and forgot what day it was and almost missed putting up my own party. Welcome to the last BFF Open House of 2012! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and is busy with plans for New Year's Eve. Ours are always very low key. I think this year we'll celebrate at midnight London time which will be about 5PM our time lol.

So let's get right to it:

Chocolate Suede Antique Gold Necklace

Now that Christmas is over, I can share a couple of projects that I made as gifts. This necklace was one of the December designs for the Blue Moon Beads design team.

I started with this mix of supplies including this mixed metal pendant. I took off the ends and used it sideways versus a dangling pendant.

I used a combination of gold chains and chain pieces and didn’t have any set design in mind but just kind of went with whatever seemed to make sense. I used some coordinating beads from a toffee themed mixture to balance it out.

Strung all of it together on a dark brown suede cord and added some coordinating beads from my stash.

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We Wish You A...

Can't believe it's Christmas already. 

Wishing you all of the joys of Christmas and time spent with family and friends. Thank you to all my readers for another fun year.